HIV Malignancies Program

We have created new laboratory-clinician partnerships to address health disparities in the Gulf South associated with HIV and cancer. Our goal is to create a comprehensive research program coupled to a diverse clinical trials program which serves the best interests of our patients in New Orleans. This program was launched in January 2013, with the following accomplishments thus far:

External Funding (updated 10/31/2013)

2 NIH R01 awards

A mentored NIH F31 award

4 awards from the Louisiana Clinical and Translational Science Program

A Phase II clinical trial award from CytRx Corporation for enrollment of patients with HIV-associated Kaposi’s sarcoma from LSUHSC and HIV clinic partners throughout the Gulf South

HIV Biorepository

Directed by Dr. Arnold Zea and housed in the new Louisiana Cancer Research Center (LCRC), this facility is staffed by full-time technicians with processing and storage capability for de-identified tumor tissue, peripheral blood mononuclear cells, plasma, and saliva. Paired clinical data are also accessible to investigators in New Orleans and our collaborative partners off campus. Accomplishments thus far include enrollment of 240 patients in an NIH-funded cancer prevention study and banking of over 2,000 plasma and 800 PBMC aliquots from these patients. The goal of this effort is to identify biomarkers in plasma which correlate with virus-associated cancer and progression in HIV-infected patients. This effort has created new interdisciplinary research programs at LSUHSC involving the Comprehensive Alcohol Research Center, Center for Cardiovascular Research, as well as members of the Departments of Psychiatry, Pathology, Radiology, Surgery, and Medicine; it has also attracted new collaborations with funded investigators from the National Cancer Institute and the University of Southern California Center for Human and Animal Virology